


Very Good Tea

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Morning After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 22:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16250951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: It's the morning after the night before. Greg's not sure how it got to where it is--or where it's going from here.





	Very Good Tea

This is very good tea.

Good as…

No.

I won’t go there.

Look at him there, all rumpled and beaky and snoring fit to raise the dead. Look at that hand, the way his long fingers curl around empty space, Renaissance hands. He’s…good. Good with his hands.

I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know what comes next.

Oh, bloody hell.

I mean…Ok. I’m too old not to admit the obvious. I pretty much know “how it happened” in the general sense. He picked me up in that damned black Jag, same-old same-old, sleek and quiet and so very, very private. Soundproofed because he uses it for so many different sorts of meeting, most classified. I was tired—the kind of tired that’s twitchy and restless, no matter how much you want to settle down and have a nice curry take-out and a beer and go to sleep. Not in the mood to bugger around with Mycroft Holmes and his eternal ritual and reserve.

I got tetchy. He got sarky in that snide, posh way he does. I snapped. He made cutting remarks about professional behavior and impulse control. I said something that might have hinted that if my impulse control weren’t fucking brilliant he’d have had a lot more to complain about a long time since. He asked what. I won’t say. He asked again.

He asked a third time, all pissy and demanding. 

So, all right, I kissed him. Hard. 

He froze, then kissed back—harder.

Beyond that, things got a bit muddled. We paused long enough for him to use the link to tell the driver to change routes and go to his place. After that…

But now it’s morning.

He sleeps like a dead giraffe, all long legs and knobby joints, all akilter. His head is arched back, showing the full stretch of his neck. He’s freckled all over. The carpet matches the drapes—russet-red, with grey just beginning to show.

Giraffe. 

I slipped out of bed when I woke up. My trousers were on the floor, pants a few feet further on. I followed the Hansel-and-Gretel trail through the flat. When I had the full set, I looked around. 

My guess was right—there was a guest bathroom, fully kitted out. I found a spare tooth brush and a baby tube of toothpaste. A razor.

I showered, and cleaned everything. All of me, including all the bits we’d put to good use last night. 

I went to the kitchen and scouted around, finding both coffee and tea and the right pots and presses and so on to make either. Or both. I thought about making some breakfast. It seemed too cocky, like he’d want me to stay and I knew it. 

I made tea. I’m pretty sure the British Government likes tea. Less sure of coffee. He may just keep it for guests, like the toothbrush and the little tube of toothpaste and the spare razor. He’s got good tea—the sort you get bespoke from Harrods. Whole packets full, a good five ounces in each packet. I opened one up and smelled, and it was like getting drunk—rich and malty, promising a brew so hearty it would stand up to a pound of sugar and all the milk in England. I made up a pot, poured myself a mug, and came back here.

He’s going to go spare when he wakes up. Mental. I know it. He’s not looking for something—for anything. Anyone. Sure as hell not for me. I got under his skin last night; caught us both off guard. But when he wakes up it’s going to be icy manners and a clear, precise request that I remove myself from the premises.

And, damn it, it’s going to hurt.

There. I’ve admitted it to myself. It’s going to hurt. Which is why, all these years, I never let my impulse control waver, until last night. I used to rationalize, tell myself I was married and couldn’t do that to Tess. Then Tess and I split up, and I just told myself it wasn’t professional, and he wasn’t interested, and that I wasn’t really either, and, well…

Yeah, so? You try fancying Antarctica. See how you handle it.

He really does have great tea. Like drinking that afterglow after good sex. All alive and brimming with energy, but relaxed and lazy and contented, too. 

He’s good in bed. Who’d-a thunk it? 

(Me. Me-me-me. I always thought if he had any physical life at all he’d have made sure he was competent. What surprised me wasn’t the skill. It was…God. He’s so…)

Lonely. He fucked like Sherlock takes drugs—with abandon. With desperate need.

He cried, without making a sound, without admitting it was even happening, tears dripping as he rode me. I found the traces in my chest hair this morning, salt and sticky, gluing the hairs together like your eye lashes when you’ve got a bad cold. When he came down he rolled off me and lay on his side, shivering.

He leaned back into me when I put my arm around him, spine tight to me, spooning close, his knees folding over my own. He took my hand in his, where it lay at his waist, and traced each finger, one at a time. His fingers shook.

It’s very good tea.

The second time was quieter. Tender. Slow. 

We didn’t say anything, beyond the occasional “this?” and “more?” It was like being in a silent movie, only run slow instead of that jittery, too-fast scurry that old films seem to run. When we were done we fell asleep. I woke up in the night and found him awake, looking at me, eyes glittering in the faint light in his bedroom.

His bedroom is dark. Very dark—blackout curtains on the windows, the flat beyond in shadows, only the faint city-light from his sitting room filtering in through the open door. He just studied me, the same way I’m studying him, now. I started to say something, and he covered my lips with one finger.

“Shhhh. Sleep. No need to wake up, yet.”

That dry voice, hushed and gentle. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew it was morning, and there he was. My giraffe, all tossed easy and elegant on the bed, sheets kicked aside, cock soft and heartbreakingly vulnerable in the fox-red curls.

I should leave as soon as I finish this mug. Save us both the discomfort to come.

But instead I stand here, leaning in the bedroom door, watching him, wondering how it happened. Why it happened. Whether it could happen again. The more fool me.

He’s Mycroft Holmes. Antarctica. The Iceman. He’s the solitary fox, the slippery devil, the hermit in the hills, impossible to track down, impossible to hold.

He’s waking up. Too late to leave.

“You’re still here.”

It’s not an accusation. It’s—what?

“It seemed rude to leave without saying goodbye. And…thank you. It was a good night.”

“So it was.” His voice is a hesitant neutral, as though he’s afraid to commit too much. “That smells like tea.”

“It is. I’m afraid I made a pot of your best. Some blend from Harrod’s.”

“That’s not telling me much. I have several.”

“It’s got a lot of Kenyan in it.”

“Ah. Yes. A good choice. Is there more?”

I nod.

“Why don’t you get me some, then—and join me,” he says, looking suddenly shy.

I smile, and swallow the rest of the mug.

It is very good tea.


End file.
